How to Be More Persuasive to Get Buy-In

You inside your head, it was very clear to you, and you had an intuition around how you do your work, and you do it naturally, and it's second-aid to you. But in that moment, where it really counts, where it really matters, and now you need to be able to articulate what you know, all of a sudden the words don't come. Or you do say certain things, or you do try to share what you know, but the other party doesn't seem to understand, or there's a misunderstanding. I'm Dr. Grace Lee, and you're listening to the Career Revisionist podcast for executives team leaders, people and managers, and ambitious professionals from all backgrounds. It's for those among us who can't stay stagnant and admire anyone who demonstrates exponential growth. We challenge ourselves to step out of our comfort zone and into higher levels of leadership, and we are determined to rise confidently in our industry so that we can make our greatest contribution using our knowledge and expertise. We have worked hard to become great at what we do, but only so we can achieve the goals that give our lives meaning and purpose. And while we persevere through a college education to get us here with our technical skills, we understand that to get to the next level where we desire to be, it requires a different kind of skills. We're not comfortable with failure because we experience satisfaction when we are advancing. And while some of us work well under pressure, all of us perform the best when we are part of a winning team. And instead of just hoping to achieve what's important to us, we choose to become a more optimized version of ourselves to make it happen. We're not just A players. We are A+ players, and we are the source of consistent output that makes positive advancements in the world around us. One of the biggest challenges that I hear clients in my mentorship share with me is that there's not enough opportunities to step up into higher levels of strategic leadership and decision making. And my response is always that when it comes to being able to improve opportunities for strategy, it is important to get buy-in, or getting buy-in from your higher ups for your ideas to implement your solutions, to implement your suggestions on how to improve processes. But when it comes to getting buy-in, it is important to be persuasive. So in this video, what I want to share with you is how can you be more persuasive to get buy-in, to improve your opportunities, to step up into strategic leadership, strategic team leadership, and strategic decision making in your organization. There are three pillars to a powerful persuasion, and I'm going to be going through each of these three pillars and what it means. Pillar number one, the first pillar is equanimity. Now, equanimity is a state of calmness in your mind in situations when there are challenges, when there are conflicts, when there are individuals who have different ways of working and different opinions from you. It is important to have this equanimity. And equanimity is important especially because it involves being present, being true represent in the moment, to respond to conversations, to have a tunement to the way the other person is responding, and to be present in the moment where your emotions aren't getting the better of you, especially the emotions in respects to nervousness, anxiety, fear of what the other person might think of you, and the emotions when it comes to also the fear of how you're presenting yourself, and the outcomes of as a result of this conversation. So equanimity goes really deep, and equanimity is also important because when it comes to persuasiveness, that conversation is just a certain type of conversation where a persuasive conversation has a certain outcome. But the outcome, the benefit of the outcome you see it, but the other person that you are trying to persuade may not see the benefit the way you see it, or may not see the benefit at all. So in that persuasive conversation, the outcome is to come to a fair change where the benefit that you see, the outcome that you see is being met, and your values are being fulfilled, but also at the same time, the individuals that you are persuading, they can also perceive that their values are being met, and that their benefits as well, that how they perceive it. So let's break down persuasiveness. Why? What does it mean to be equanimity of mind and to be present? Well, if you look at the word persuasiveness, if you break it down into its meaning, the etymology of persuasiveness, the syllable per means all the way through, which means thorough. The latter half of the word "swedere" in Latin means to advise. So when you put that together, a persuasion being persuasive is an individual who can have the most thorough advisement, and your advice is all the way through to completion. So persuasiveness is very important because when you are persuading somebody, you're not trying to convince somebody. Convincing and persuading are not the same thing. Have you ever had that experience where you tried to convince your higher-ups and you noticed that they don't like to be convinced? Have you ever tried to convince your higher-ups that your idea was the right one to go? Have you ever tried to convince your higher-ups that you really deserve that promotion and you really earned that promotion? Have you ever noticed their reactions and their responses? Right, higher-ups don't like to be convinced, but people can appreciate being persuaded. So equanimity is really important because it allows you to be in that moment responding. It allows you to be authentic to share what is truly a value. It really allows you to be in that moment to create a sustainable fair change between yourself and the individuals that you are conversing with. And more importantly, it allows you to be congruent. And this is an important aspect of persuasiveness as well, is that you have congruency inside and out. That not only are your words sharing what you are about to do and the outcome, but your actions match those words and your thoughts and your philosophies and your internal beliefs also match that as well. So there's a congruency with respect to equanimity. But more importantly, with respect to equanimity, there is a self-governance from within. Ungovernance of, I know who I am and what's important to me. And in this moment, when I am going to share and position my idea that I have nothing to prove, I have to have it to hide and have nothing to protect. So this is equanimity. When you can truly have that executive presence and share your idea or that which you want to persuade in a way that is strategic. So let's review the first pillar was equanimity. The second pillar is equity. And I mentioned it, what this means, equity is the ratio of inputs and outputs. If you think about it, you are in an organization, you lead a team and you're about to get buy-in from your higher-ups. And that is your intent to get that buy-in. And when it comes to getting buy-in, if it is an authentic buy-in, it is a merited buy-in, it would be important to create a sustainable fair change. Which means that you yourself internally and your mind, you have an inventory of that ratio of, these are my inputs. This is what I'm putting into it. This is my effort. But also this is what I'm going to get out of it. These are my rewards. And this is my output. And these are the things that I can get in return for it. While you have that in your mind, your higher-ups, the individuals you're having conversations with it also have a similar ratio of their inputs and outputs. And so every individual has a perception of what is equitable according to that ratio. But it is important to understand, well, I know what my priorities are. But I also understand what their priorities are. And in this moment, I can appreciate their priorities. I also appreciate and honor my priorities. And I'm just here to create a win-win scenario. And the strategy towards creating a win-win scenario is what I'm going to present. So when you have equity, equity is the only way that relationships are meaningful. They're also the only way that relationships are sustainable. So this is really important pillar of persuasion is how might I be able to produce equity in the way that I strategically carry out my persuasive conversation. If you're a team leader and you really desire to step up into strategy, strategic leadership, strategic decision-making, maybe you want to step up in higher levels of the executive management in your organization, then I invite you to work with me. Below this video, and the very first link is a link to book a call with one of my trusted career advisors. And this is where we're going to explore my mentorship. And in my mentorship, you're going to discover the strategy of how you build persuasive conversations. How do you create that fair exchange? And how do you continue in that process of moving yourself and your career from tactical implementation all the way through to strategic? Because what I see often in the mentorship with my clients is that sometimes individuals can be pigeonholed into tactical implementation, pigeonholed as the technician, as a technical expert, when they really desire to become more strategic. When they really desire to utilize their knowledge to have decisions that move the business forward. So if that's you and you really desire to be in that position, I invite you to book a call with my advisor and look forward to working with you on the inside. So let's review the first pillar of powerful persuasion is equanimity. Second pillar is equity. The third pillar is epistemy. So what is epistemy? Epistemy is simply knowledge. Epistemology is therefore the study of knowledge. And this element and this pillar is very important in persuasion because when you are creating the strategy of persuasion when you are creating fair exchange, when you are positioning yourself or your idea or the project that you want to implement, it is important to bring your knowledge into it. But oftentimes the knowledge that you had, especially if you are a subject matter expert, especially if you're really good at what you do, this is harder than it seems. Have you ever had that instant where you inside your head it was very clear to you and you had an intuition around how you do your work and you do it naturally and it's second nature to you. But in that moment where it really counts, where it really matters and now you need to be able to articulate what you now, all of a sudden the words don't come. Or you do say certain things or you do try to share what you know. but the other party doesn't seem to understand or there's a misunderstanding. Now if you ever had that experience, the reason why is because the more you are an expert in your domain, the more difficult it is to put words to and articulate what you know. So the practice as a epistemology is the study of what you know and this is important to be able to put words to and to be able to create that fair change so that you really are advising all the way through. Per swation to advise all the way through in a way that serves your audience and creates fair exchange. So once again, if you are serious about creating these outcomes for yourself and you'd like some help on how do I practice epistemology? How do I create fair exchange? How does the strategy to be able to persuade more powerfully? Then I look forward to working with you and in this mentorship, this is where you're going to learn the skills of communication, where you're going to learn the skillsets of communication and handling their objections as well. And I look forward to having those outcomes in your career path as well.